Kragthorpe: Stanford, Georgia Tech, Boise State to converge in Utah

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Six months from today, the state's three Football Bowl Subdivision schools will stage the biggest Saturday in the history of Utah college football.

That's mostly because of the distinguished guests.

Utah State's inaugural Mountain West schedule was released this week, creating a convergence unlike anything in the past. Look at this lineup for Oct. 12: Stanford at Utah, Georgia Tech at BYU and Boise State at USU.

That brings the defending Pac-12 and Rose Bowl champion, an Atlantic Coast Conference title-game contestant and a Mountain West co-champion to Utah on the same day, when roughly 135,000 fans should fill the three stadiums from Logan to Provo.

Stanford and Boise should be in the Top 25 and Georgia Tech may close to that realm as of mid-October. In one sense, it's too bad that the focus on any of those games will be diluted. But having all of those teams visit the state at the same time will create a much-anticipated day of football. Who knows, the kickoff times may even enable some of us to attend more than one game.

Other scheduling notes:

• Sept. 21 will be another big day, with USU visiting USC and BYU hosting Utah before the rivalry takes a two-year break.

• Thanks to Thursday and Friday games, there will be consecutive Saturdays when Utah, BYU and USU are all idle. On Friday, Sept. 27, BYU hosts Middle Tennessee State and USU visits San Jose State. Utah has a bye that week.

The following week, Utah hosts UCLA on Thursday and USU hosts BYU on Friday.

• There's another Saturday when all three teams will be on the road. That's Oct. 19, when BYU plays Houston, Utah visits Arizona and USU meets New Mexico.

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